


Blood Runs Cold

by publicspeaking



Series: (Get In Line And) Settle Down [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Always a girl! Stiles, F/M, Pregnancy, Season 2 AU, a surprising amount of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/publicspeaking/pseuds/publicspeaking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles knows family is something that should be protected at all costs. That and her intuition is always right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Runs Cold

**Author's Note:**

> So back in 2012 I started writing a sequel for Wonderwall and it was going to be full of fluff and everyone growing up together and having kids and naturally, as with all nice things, I abandoned it. When I went back to read it, I wound up writing this thinking it would be part of that and it would all go together nicely, but this turned out to be, well, this. 
> 
> Also, this is unbeta'd and the first thing I've written in ages and ages so I apologize for pretty much everything as this is pretty much incredibly self indulgent on my part.

The house was too dark, it was all that Stiles could think. Too dark and too quiet, no sounds of the forest outside, no hum of the air conditioning. Still, she kept moving forward, bare feet quiet on the wood floor, gut instinct leading her towards the nursery. Had Derek painted it? The room looked different somehow, bathed in the moonlight coming through the bay window, making the walls look a washed out yellow. She’d have to talk to him about it later, they’d agreed on green, neutral and soothing for both her and the baby. Nothing else seemed out of place, the crib had been put together against the wall, the wardrobe and the rocking chair and the changing station, everything had been put together ages ago. They were so ready for this, whenever the baby decided it wanted out into the world. The room should have been peaceful and tranquil, but it wasn’t. There was something she still couldn’t put her finger on, something off about the whole thing. 

“Look at you, Stiles. This is something I never would have expected.” And the voice was startlingly familiar, something that she hadn’t heard since high school. Stiles whipped around quickly, hands shaking as she saw the figure in the doorway, his burned form bathed in moonlight. She wanted desperately to scream for Derek but it felt like her throat wasn’t working, her feet slipping as she backed up against the wall reaching for anything to grab to defend herself. Peter Hale was supposed to be dead, she saw him die, saw Derek rip out his throat. 

“Defenseless, isn’t she?” The second voice was one she had trouble placing, familiar and terrifying, but it wasn’t until she saw the woman step forward from the shadows of the room. They were cornering her, Peter and Kate, two people who she had definitely seen die, and here they were, and she was alone, and god why couldn’t she speak, why wasn’t Derek here to help her? Peter was shifting and Kate was laughing and Stiles couldn’t stop shaking, gripping white knuckled onto the edge of the changing table, back against the wall. 

All it took was a swipe from Peter and a spray of blood and she finally found her voice and screamed.

\--

“Stiles!” Derek’s voice sounded frantic as he shook her, but she couldn’t stop screaming, couldn’t open her eyes. The blankets were smothering her and the air was too thick to breathe, and she just couldn’t stop, because Peter and Kate and the baby, and oh god, the baby. Her screams turned into thick sobs and she finally stopped thrashing enough to let Derek get his arms around her, holding her face into his chest, just rocking her slowly. “It was just a dream, Stiles, everything’s alright.” He didn’t say more, just let her cry and go limp in his arms, the stubble on his cheeks rubbing against her temple when he moved to kiss her hair. Derek was steady and calm and he was right, she realized. It took a bit for her to open her eyes, wet and heavy, just pulling back enough from him that she could wipe at them with the heel of her hand. Derek must have had turned the bedside lamp on before he’d consoled her, a consideration for her after the nightmares, she knew. 

“That was really horrible.” More than anything Stiles wanted to make a joke out of it, her voice thick, shoulders heaving as she tried to breathe again. Derek’s hand on her back was steadying, stroking up and down her spine as she calmed down. She knew he was doing his best, just letting her get herself out of the panic and come to terms with the fact that it was a dream. He always seemed to know what she needed, that being smothered wasn’t going to help her calm down, that making her feel silly for being so scared of a dream was only going to upset her more. He just oozed calmness and she knew that was mostly for her sake, that she was feeding off of what he put out there for her, and it was exactly what she needed, exactly what helped her breathing come back to normal. 

Derek didn’t say anything when she climbed out of bed, just followed her as she headed out into the hallway. She needed to see the room for herself, to put to rest the unsettling feeling the nightmare had given her. He was quiet behind her, flipping on the hallway light even though she was at the door to the nursery, giving her enough space to make her feel protected without feeling like he was making light of what she was feeling. 

The room was still dark, darker than her dream even. Normally there would be moonlight, but it was a new moon, she remembered, just turning on the light. The walls were still the most boring beige ever, evidence of it being a guest room for the pack, and none of the furniture was put together yet. Everything was in boxes along the wall, some still with the obnoxious pink ribbons from her baby shower the week before. It was nothing like her dream and that was enough to make her relax, letting out a shuddering sigh of relief as she felt Derek’s arms wrap around her from behind, his chin resting on the top of her head. She let her hands follow his to rest on the swell of her belly, eyes closing as she listened to his heartbeat. 

“Is this normal?” Stiles hated how broken she sounded, that this was something she even needed to ask. No one else had ever complained about nightmares, but then again she wasn’t sure this was the kind of thing she’d want to share with the rest of the pack anyway. 

“Are you normal?” His tone was teasing and she was glad for it, even more glad she was standing in front of him so she could stomp on his toes for it. His yelp of surprise was even more satisfying, but this was exactly what she had needed and Derek knew it. She blocked his hand when he went to pinch her in retaliation, entwining their fingers together instead. For as terrible as he had been when she’d first met him, Derek had grown into an excellent man. He was a good alpha and a great husband, and she was sure he was going to be an even better father, and well, that feeling alone was enough to calm her down. 

Stiles was grateful she didn’t need to say anything else, letting Derek turn off the lights and lead her back across the hall into their bedroom. He was good for things like this, warm and solid when she needed him to be exactly those things, knowing where to rub her scalp when she rested her head on his chest. They could do this easily, communicate through touches instead of words, and that was really everything to Stiles. Words were her easy defences, sharp barbs to keep others at bay, but Derek, he’d barrelled through everything and had given her everything she’d never knew she needed. He loved her enough to learn her, and that, well, that was everything.

\--

Tom was easily the cutest kid Stiles had ever seen in her entire life. He had most of Allison’s features but Scott’s giant smile and uneven jaw, and a predisposition for getting into the most trouble a toddler could. He reminded Stiles a lot of Scott, but better, because he was small and new and always let her know that she was his favorite aunt. Sure, he was somehow always sticky and there was that one time he tried to eat a frog, but she was pretty sure he was mostly normal. Besides, he was good practice, and Allison and Scott definitely appreciated the help sometimes. She liked carrying him around the house sometimes, this little person on her hip with his arms wrapped around her neck, like some oddly calming leech. 

“You can borrow him longer if you want. Travis has been keeping all of us up lately, I think it’s making him crankier than usual.” Stiles had almost forgotten Allison was there, half asleep herself with Tom drooling on her shoulder. They had the run of the kitchen tonight, the pack on a run and Lydia working on her doctorate in Derek’s office. Stiles got it, the pack could be loud on a full moon night and the babies even louder because they knew there was something about them that was different. 

“Did you finally get him down?” And really, Stiles should have been offering Allison back her son so she could attempt to try and do anything else to get the after run dinner ready, but Tom was warm and she was tired and she could always cry to Allison about it being the pregnancy hormones. 

“Finally, yeah. I know he’ll wake up when they get back, but little miracles, right?” She looked exhausted, but she was still bright and kind of unearthly beautiful and really, that wasn’t fair. Stiles felt huge and sore and she definitely had a giant zit coming in on her chin that was killing her. It was something she never remembered about Allison’s pregnancies, she’d barely showed with both of them and had somehow always looked glossy and done up, while Stiles could barely be bothered to change out of her sweats and one of Derek’s shirts. It was like high school all over again, and well, that was an annoyingly uncomfortable feeling. 

But Allison was smart and competent and she’d had her laptop open on the counter before Stiles could even think of anything clever to say, and bless her, she knew how long they’d have before the pack started to come back for dinner before they headed out for the rest of the night. They were all pretty sure the barbeque place they always ordered from thought they were some sort of weird cult, but no one ever turned down a couple hundred dollars worth of business, even if it did tend to be on short notice. 

“So, you’ve been having nightmares?” Allison clearly had been careful about bringing it up, her voice soft and kind, and she had the decency to not be looking at Stiles when she asked her about it, like she knew it was something she didn’t want to talk about. Maybe if it was Lydia she could have been more open about it, but it wasn’t something she’d understand. Kids weren’t exactly a priority for her, not until she’d achieved her pinnacle of success, and that was something Stiles could really admire. Lydia had always been a futurist, thinking of what she could set out to accomplish and doing it, while Stiles had always been more of an in the now kind of person. Besides, she’d really really liked having sex with Derek. 

“Um, yeah, a bit.” It wasn’t something she really knew how to talk about, especially not with Allison. Things had been better since she’d come back, they’d talked and Stiles had tried really really hard not to keep up the wall with her after everything that had happened. And maybe it was a good opportunity, with the two of them being the only ones who were in the same situation. “Is that normal? Was that something you had?” And Allison was really her lifeline here, it wasn’t like there was a book out there about what to do when you were knocked up by your werewolf husband (there were loads of books, it turned out, just none of them were actually based in reality and/or helpful). 

“Sometimes, yeah. Especially with Tom, like what if he came out looking like Scott when he shifts?” Meeting eyes over the laptop, the two of them started laughing, and Stiles only felt moderately bad for waking up Tom with it. His little fist socked her in the jaw when he went to rub his eyes, but she couldn’t be mad at him, just setting him down on the floor so he could go run to his mom’s legs and cling to her. 

“Oh my god, did you tell him about that? Did he make the really sad offended face?” It was so easy to change the subject to something light, and well they did always have Scott to bond over. 

“He kept talking about how we should have a home birth then, with his mom and you guys, which would have been the most awkward thing ever. Like can you imagine all of you standing around while that’s happening?” They both burst into laughter again, Stiles moving closer to sit at the counter across from her. “I couldn’t tell him I was scared that Tom would wind up looking like that, like he’s such a good looking guy but he’s such an ugly werewolf.” 

“At least he has eyebrows!” Allison’s loud cackle felt good, like Stiles had done something right. There was nothing to worry about, there was no need to bring up the nightmares or who they involved. Things would be alright, Stiles had a feeling, and she was usually right about her feelings.

\--

Nothing was alright. Peter was moving closer and closer to her, stepping over the trail of groceries that had spilled out of her bag. Behind him was nothing but carnage, bodies of the pack torn apart across the parking garage like they were nothing but dolls. Blood dripped from his claws, from the sharp teeth in his terrifying smile. All she wanted to do was run, but running wasn’t an option because she was thirty eight weeks pregnant and he was a fucking werewolf. She wasn’t going to survive this, but worst of all her baby wasn’t going to survive this, and nothing scared her more. 

“You really made a terrible choice, Stiles. You should have let me turn you, do you remember that? Here, always returning to the scene of the crime.” His monologuing should have triggered something in her, her smart mouth reflexes, but she was too busy trying to figure out how to get out of this, how to stay alive. Darting behind a car, Stiles ducked down to hide, crawling on all fours to try and get behind another car, to see if one was open so she could find a phone, so she could steal it and get away, so she could do anything but feel so terrified and hopeless. Something bounced off the hood of one of the cars, landing at her feet and she couldn’t stop the terrified noise from escaping, covering her mouth with both her hands. It was Allison’s head, launched over like it was nothing, her eyes wide open and her skin ripped apart, part of her spine still attached. All Stiles could do was lean against the car, crying into her hands and hoping someone else came, someone helped her get away from Peter before he did the same to her. 

There was no way for her to curl up into a smaller ball, her knees into her stomach into her chest into her chin, biting on her knuckles to keep from crying out. Her cheeks were wet and she was trembling all over, and the footsteps were getting closer and closer. 

“Oh Stiles.” Peter’s voice came from right above her, and god, she couldn’t breathe. He grabbed her by the front of her jacket, claws ripping through the leather and scraping against her collarbone as he pulled her up and to him, her back against his chest. His other hand moved over her stomach slowly, his breath hot on her neck. She felt so helpless, trying to push his hands away but it only made him sink his claws deeper into her chest, anchoring his claws into her skin. “What a shame you let Derek do this to you. This could have been ours, Stiles, all of this. The pack, this town, this child. If only you’d have let me turn you.” And god, as if it couldn’t have been worse, he was hard. She could feel him behind her, rubbing up against her back as he made her walk in front of him to the middle of the garage. Her throat felt closed up, like she couldn’t make a noise, couldn’t swallow the lump there, couldn’t do anything but cry and try to keep his hand from moving up her dress. She was terrified of what he wanted, but if there was a chance she could make it out alive, well she’d take it, she’d do what she’d have to do to protect her baby. 

“I know we’re a bit late for your shower, but we got you a present.” Kate’s voice rang out through the garage, the sound of something being dragged behind her making Stiles shudder. The two of them again, just when she’d thought there was some sort of possibility of escape. Kate dragged the body into the light and Stiles felt all the energy drain out of her when she saw what they’d done to Derek. He was bruised and bloody, his right arm bent back awkwardly and blood dripping down from his mouth and nose onto the pavement. He was still alive, but barely, she could see that much in the dim light, mouthing “no” over and over once he saw her. 

When Kate let him go, Stiles thought they could try and make it, that he could muster up some sort of energy to save them. All he did was kneel there, leaning to one side, his eyes locked on Stiles. Anything else could have been happening, but all she could see was him, the love of her life beaten and broken. 

Kate’s gunshot to Derek’s head came the same time Peter ripped open Stiles’ belly. She finally screamed. 

\--

Stiles had barely made it to the bathroom before she threw up. Pregnancy had made the master suite even more amazing than she thought it could be, but that dream, she’d never been happier to have something close to her. Derek hadn’t been in bed and that didn’t help shake the feeling that something was wrong. The dream had been so vivid, every detail was still visible when she closed her eyes, but it had just been a dream, everyone was alive and well, she was sure of it. She just needed to calm down, to climb into the shower and remember how to breathe properly. 

The water had run cold when the bathroom door opened, but Stiles barely noticed. She had curled into the tiniest ball she could on the floor, cold water soaking her, reminding her that she was awake and alive. She couldn’t focus on anything, not Derek turning off the water and wrapping her in a big warm towel, just limp in his hands as he dried her off. This needed words maybe, but Stiles didn’t have any, not until she was warm enough to stop shaking long enough to wrap her arms around him. 

“I was so scared you were really dead.” Her voice trembled, hands moving slowly over his cheeks so she could look at him, make sure it was really her Derek. She’d never seen him look so miserable, not even back when things were bad all those years ago. “It was so bad, Derek, I saw everyone, I saw you...” she couldn’t finish the sentence and he didn’t make her, just pulling her in so she could cry. 

“It’s okay, Stiles, you’re okay. I was on a run with the pack, everyone’s okay.” It was the mantra she needed to hear, that everything wasn’t as bad as she thought it was, that everyone was alive and as fine as they were when she saw them at dinner. Derek was alive and Peter and Kate were still dead. Nobody was going to hurt her or the baby or the pack. Nobody was going to take this away from her, she wasn’t going to let them. 

\--

“Do you know it’s really hard to not sleep when you’re pregnant? Because you can’t take anything and you can’t drink anything and Derek like literally growls at me when I have one cup of coffee. Like hello how do you think I’m supposed to survive without caffeine?” Stiles enjoyed venting to Lydia, mostly because she was pretty sure Lydia just put her on speaker and made the right noises at the right time. “And the nightmares? Like I’m pretty sure I’d never like to sleep again if I’m honest. I can’t look at Allison anymore, all I see is like, ugh, anyway it was really horrible. And I know it’s freaking Derek out because he doesn’t know what to do about it, and I can’t talk to him about it because you know how he gets. He’ll think he has to do something about it, and we’ll have to wind up calling some weird mystic thing and I hate that, don’t you hate that? What the hell is magic, it makes no sense, none of this makes any sense. I really hate werewolves, Lydia.” 

“You two always do this, Stiles, you both think you can solve problems by yourselves and it never works for either of you.” So she was listening, that was enough to make Stiles take a pause in her attempt to add another layer to her tower of a sandwich. “Tell him what they’re about, that your subconscious is trying to tell you how afraid you are of losing everything and it’s manifesting itself in the two people who made life the scariest for all of us.” And yeah, if anyone could understand Stiles’ fear of Peter Hale, it was Lydia. “And thank you for not bringing Jackson’s lizard phase into your pregnancy nightmares.”

“Hey remember that time in high school where your boyfriend tried to kill me and Derek and made us stay in a pool for like a million hours? And Derek couldn’t even touch my boobs? Well like on purpose, because there were a few grazes let me tell you...”

“Stiles, I love you, I really do, but you’re just projecting your fears out in your dreams. You’ve been through a lot, we all have. It was just easier for you to handle before because there wasn’t as much on the line for you. You’re just scared now because you have a whole lot more to lose. It’s not just the pack anymore, it’s not just you and Derek. You two know how to protect each other, you’ve been doing it for twelve years.”

“I feel so helpless, Lydia. In every dream, it’s like, it’s like back in high school. I couldn’t do anything to save anyone I’m just watching the whole world burn around me.”

“Do you really think you didn’t save anyone?” Lydia’s voice was tense over the phone, and oh, Stiles might have hit a nerve there. “You saved me, you idiot. You saved Derek and Scott, and Jackson, and we’d all have been lost without you. You know that, so cut the pity party crap and go tell all of this to Derek. I know you two have that weird thing where you don’t talk, but it’s not healthy, Stiles. You’re married, you’re supposed to be able to tell him when and why you’re scared.” And she was right, as much as Stiles hated it, because mostly Stiles had just wanted someone to whine to. 

“Yeah, alright, I love you, bowing before your genius oh great solver of all of my prob...”

“Bye, Stiles.” Lydia hung up before Stiles could finish, and well, that was just like her. Solving everyone’s problems and not sticking around for the embarrassing thank yous, that was Lydia. She was right though, Stiles did need to talk to Derek about everything, because not sleeping was just not something that was going to work, and it was just there, every time she closed her eyes. It wasn’t healthy for her and she wasn’t sure if it was healthy for the baby, and the last thing she wanted was for anything to happen. It was the cause for the nightmares in the first place, wasn’t it? Lydia had given her confidence in this, because as emotionally constipated as Derek could be, she was sure this was something he could understand. 

\--

Derek cried. Derek full on sobbed when he held Laura for the first time, and if it wasn’t possibly the sweetest thing Stiles had ever seen, she would have done nothing but laugh at him. But watching him hold her, she was pretty misty eyed herself, her stupid handsome werewolf husband and their perfect baby girl. That moment alone was worth the thirty six hours of labor, of the screaming and the crying and feeling like her entire body wasn’t hers anymore. She couldn’t believe Allison had went through it twice, but watching Derek hold her, she’d have done it again and again just to have that one moment forever. He should have looked awful, after all he’d spent the past two days awake at Stiles’ bedside, but she couldn’t help but feel more in love with him than she’d ever been. He had that smile, the secret one that no one but Stiles ever saw, that told how behind that rock hard exterior there was a soft center. He’d lost everyone and he’d slowly gained something new back, not a replacement but something of his own. A pack, a family, and god, nothing in the world made her feel prouder than when he looked at her like that. 

\--

Stiles would have prefered something more drawn out, some teasing, actually being in their own bed. There were a lot of joys about having a baby, but trying to have sex again was definitely not one of them. Fatherhood had brought something out in Derek that was definitely brand new, this constant raging libido that meant he was good to go at a moment’s notice. And that was definitely really sexy; she’d always loved when he looked at her like she was something he wanted to tear apart and put back together again. Those looks always made her weak at the knees, but none of that mattered if they didn’t actually have any time. Between Laura and the pack and work, they’d barely had time to be alone in a room together, let alone do anything besides catch up on a few precious hours of sleep. She’d never been a romantic about things, god knew she enjoyed it when Derek had dropped her on the sofa and buried his head between her legs. He’d always been so good at that, knowing all the right moves to make her writhe underneath him, knowing when she bit down on her wrist to hand her a pillow so she could muffle herself. Laura had just went to sleep, they didn’t have much time and the fact that Derek had started with this, well, Stiles knew she picked herself a winner. She was so close, her fingers tight into the pillow, breathing hard and biting down on her lip to keep herself quiet, at least until the ringing started. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Derek looked almost as dazed and disappointed as she felt, and well, maybe she was a little bit tempted to push his head back down and make him finish what he started. She had a feeling he was thinking the same thing until the phone ringing made Laura start crying, and just like that, their romantic interlude was over. 

“I’ll get her, you get the phone.” God, he was too hot to focus on anything else, he way he lifted up his shirt to wipe his mouth, the wide expanse of his back as he headed up the stairs. Whoever ruined this was going to have hell to pay, Stiles was going to make absolute sure of that. 

“This had better be important.” It had to be the pack at this time of night, well, that and the fact that the house was an unlisted number. It was a necessary evil, mostly because there was next to no cell reception in the middle of the woods. Stiles had never hated the phone more, wondering if she could break it between her head and shoulder as she pulled her pants back up, trying to ignore the fact that she was still a bit weak kneed. 

“Hello Stiles.” Peter’s voice. Peter’s very much dead voice when Stiles was very much awake. “That was quite a show the two of you were putting on there. I hope you’ll forgive me for not letting you finish.” Her eyes darted around the room, trying to see where anyone could have seen them. The windows were closed, the blinds drawn, there was nothing she could see. There was no way Peter could have been in the house, Derek would have sensed him, sleep deprived or not. She’d seen Derek sniff someone out when he was far worse off than just running on a few hours of sleep. “Looking for me, are you? You won’t find me there. No, I think you should tell Derek you’re going to go out for a bit. Go out to the tree line, you’ll find a surprise waiting for you there. Oh, and Stiles? If you tell him about our little talk here, that little fire Kate set all those years ago will look like a candle compared to what I’ll do.” The call cut off with a click and Stiles could barely keep on her feet. The phone dropped from her hands as she buckled down onto the couch, breathing hard but trying to keep her wits about her. If it had been just the two of them, she would have been able to handle it, she and Derek could handle anything, but bringing Laura into the equation, having her daughter’s life threatened? Well, that was something she wasn’t going to let happen. 

If she told Derek she was leaving, she knew he’d want to come with her. He’d make something of it, of getting Laura in the car and going for a drive to lull her back to sleep, and that, well the thought of that made Stiles a bit sick. She wasn’t going to put their baby in danger, no, she’d be safer home with Derek. As scared as she was, she’d been through worse than Peter Hale. Instead of calling up to him, she scribbled a note on one of the pads by the phone and stuck it under the baby monitor, just grabbing the biggest knife from the block and stuffing it into her purse. Whatever Peter had in mind, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

The woods sounded alive when she got outside, crickets and leaves rustling, a warm breeze blowing her already messy hair around. This was a really terrible idea, but Stiles was always one for terrible ideas, especially when it involved her family. She’d do anything for all of them, but the two in the house, god, if it meant doing this to keep them safe then she’d do it. All she could think of were her dreams, the unsettling warnings of what were to come, she’d figured. She had a feeling she knew where Peter had meant when he said the tree line, the edge of the clearing behind the house where the pack had always gathered to leave their stuff behind when they shifted. It was far enough away from the house that if they’d had guests over no one could see them change, but still close enough that they’d always been able to be called back for food or emergencies. It was close enough for her to scream for Derek if something went wrong, to give him a few extra seconds to get Laura and get out of there, and god, she was so stupid, why hadn’t she told him where she was going and what she was doing, why hadn’t she let him talk her out of this? 

“Oh good, you came alone. I almost thought you’d be stupid enough to bring the cavalry.” On the phone Peter’s voice had creeped her out, but in person, it was so much worse. She felt the dread like ice through her veins, turning to see the bright blue eyes brilliant in the darkness. He always knew how to make an entrance, walking slowly out of the shadows towards her, the predator knowing he’d caught his prey in a trap. 

“Yeah, well, as we lack horses, they’re not really a cavalry.” Her wit was still her best weapon, although having her fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife in her bag was definitely a comforting feeling. She knew she needed him close so she could strike him, but there was always the danger of Peter being close, of how easily he could tear her apart if she’d manage to fail at the element of surprise. She knew him though, she’d remembered how he was the last time he’d held her hostage, knew he had to be playing this game for some reason. 

“She’s got a knife, Peter.” The woman’s voice seemed like it had come out of nowhere, but Stiles knew it, had dreamed it enough lately. There was a quiet cracking of branches and a soft thump of someone landing on the ground and Kate Argent moved out of the shadows, quicker than Peter had. Before Stiles had a chance to react, she was pinned face down into the dirt, Peter kneeling on her back while Kate tossed away her purse. “I told you she wouldn’t come alone. If she told him...”

“If she told him then we would have heard, wouldn’t we? We’ve had that place bugged for months, they haven’t been able to make a move we haven’t known about.” Peter snapped at Kate before she could finish, his claws digging into the flesh of Stiles’ wrists. She wanted nothing more than to cry out, but she knew what a terrible idea that would be. Derek was alone in the house with no one to watch Laura if he had to fight them, and as much as he liked to think he could take on the two of them at the same time, she knew they’d try something horrible, she knew they’d put the baby at risk. There was nothing she could do but let out a quiet sob into the dirt, shoulders heaving under the weight of it all. 

“Please don’t hurt them.” Begging felt worse than any of it, that she’d fucked up this badly to put her family at the mercy of these two psychopaths. “Please, fuck, I’ll do anything, just leave the two of them alone. She’s just a baby, please, you can’t hurt them.” And Kate’s laughter hurt more than Peter’s knee in her back, her vision blurring when Kate dug her nails into her scalp and yanked her head up to look at her. She had a syringe in her hand and a smile on her face, hair almost as wild as her eyes. 

“Just for that, I think we’ll make you kill them.” It was the last thing she heard before Kate stuck the needle into her neck, and everything went black.

\--

Everything was quiet. It almost felt like Stiles was listening to one of those white noise machines that she’d had in college, the sound of water lapping onto a shore, crickets and frogs and the easy creaks of the tree branches in the breeze. If it hadn’t been for the soreness in her limbs and the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, she could have almost thought she was back in college, waking up hungover in her appallingly empty twin bed. But opening her eyes Stiles realized this was nothing like college, mostly because college hadn’t ever left her feeling paralyzed with kanima venom in a boathouse with two insane werewolves. 

She could feel her fingers beginning to move again, trying desperately to remember what they’d done to get through it all those years ago. Derek had used pain, but it wasn’t like Stiles’ healed as easily, and she was in enough of that from the way they’d roughed her up to bring her here. Peter and Kate weren’t watching her, instead they were across the boat slip at what looked like a table, hunched over a laptop and surrounded by cartons of takeout. Naturally, she figured, kidnapping made a person hungry. Their distraction made it easier, slowly taking control of her body back, moving each muscle slowly, willing them to work. She didn’t know what they’d done after they took her, but if there were any two people she’d met that did a great villain monologue, it was the two of them. 

“What’s a girl got to do to get a class of water around here?” Stiles had made a mental note of all the ways she could escape before she opened her mouth, and well, there was really only the underwater option. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was escape, but she needed to know what they’d done, what they were planning on doing. Bait had always been a role she’d been good at playing when it came to supernatural creatures, and she knew these were two predators who thoroughly enjoyed playing with their food. 

They hadn’t seem distracted by her, much to her dismay. Instead Kate rose from her chair slowly, making her way around the slip to where Stiles was still sat up against the wall. 

“You’re thirsty, Stiles?” The amount of amusement in Kate’s voice was unsettling and before Stiles had a chance to get out a reply, Kate was dragging her by her hair to the edge of the dock. She’d only had a second of breath before she was plunged headfirst into the water, fingers scratching at the wood to try and fight Kate off to keep her head above water. There really wasn’t any use, her limbs were too weak from being paralyzed and Kate was a fucking werewolf, after all, pulling Stiles up to get a gasp of air before plunging her back down again. It was disorienting and horrible and Stiles couldn’t breathe, but worst of all it was familiar. She was choking on water when Kate finally let go of her, laughing loudly over her as Stiles scrambled back against the wall, coughing up the lake water and trying to catch her breath. 

“What the fuck is with you Argents and trying to drown me?” Stiles felt dizzy and sick, ready to vomit on the dock at her own words, but this wasn’t the first time she’d been tortured, this wasn’t the first time she’d had to tap into her inner strength. She had a reason to make it out of this, and god damn it Kate and Peter were not going to be the ones to take her out. Kate was circling her, half shifted and completely wild, and if it hadn’t been for Peter, she was sure Kate would have just killed her right then and there. Instead he was there before Kate could strike, shoving her into the wall. The entire boathouse seemed to shift at the direct hit to it’s support, little specks of dust catching the dim overhead lighting. 

“We talked about this, didn’t we? You can’t hurt her, we need her. The plan doesn’t work if she’s not alive for the alpha to bite.” Stiles only heard Kate’s low answering growl, her heart hammering in her ears. They wanted to turn her, they’d said they wanted to use her to kill Derek. God, they were going to make her feral and set her loose on everyone she loved, and then they’d have it all wouldn’t they? She could always count on Peter to spill the important details, but what she hadn’t counted on was the two of them being that insane. She needed a new escape route, a new way to get out and warn everyone, to make sure that her family and friends were safe.

Stiles had lost sight of the two of them for only a second, but another growl caught her attention again. And that, well, that was a sight she had never wanted to see, Peter and Kate shifted and kissing, drawing blood from another with their claws. Insanity was easy to distract with lust and violence, she figured, but it meant a chance to escape, it meant there was a chance she’d live through this. She’d lost their attention long enough to grab a spool of fishing line discarded by a tackle box, wrapping the loose end tightly around a small piece of wood she’d found lying next to it. With another thump, she saw that they’d moved again, Kate pinning Peter against the wall, her hands moving underneath his shirt. Incredibly gross, but incredibly lucky for her, she moved as quietly as she could behind Kate, catching her by surprise around the neck with her makeshift garrote. It was all the adrenaline Stiles had in her, the strength and power she’d never thought she’d had coming out. This was for everything, for all the things that Kate had cost Derek, for all the things she was still trying to make the both of them lose. The element of surprise was all on her, pulling and pulling as Kate’s arms flailed back to try and get her off, claws digging into Stiles’ arms until she was finally limp, blue in the lips when Stiles dropped her body to the ground. 

One down didn’t seem all that pleasant when she looked at Peter, the rage and shock in his face making her back up slowly. She’d spent her energy on strangling Kate, and this time she didn’t have surprise, just weak limbs and spent breath and gashes dripping blood onto the splintered wood. Peter pounced and Stiles screamed, backing up hard into one of the support beams. She could feel it splinter behind her as the building rocked, Peter’s hands tearing at her skin and clothes. She pushed back harder on the beam and felt it start to give, just tearing herself out of Peter’s grasp long enough to watch the building begin to buckle. Everything hurt, the gouges in her skin, the sharp pain in her back, the fire in her muscles. She refused to give in though, this was not going to be the end of her, not here, not like this. Darting away from the beam, she spotted an axe next to a rusty fire extinguisher, racing towards it before Peter could realize what she was doing. All she heard was his laughter, psychotic and coming closer, like he was falling apart as quickly as the structure was. 

“After all of this, you think you’re the one that’s going to defeat me? You’re nothing, Stiles, you’re nothing but a pawn in this game and tonight you’re going to lose everything.” He was right there and all she could do was swing the axe at him, going wide and almost losing her balance, doing nothing but making him laugh harder. “You know, it really would have been such a pleasure to have this gone to plan. Kate was good fun, but you, you would have made such an excellent partner. You should have let me bite you all those years ago, think of the fun we could have had.” He was trying to corner her, she knew, staying far enough away that she could swing the axe without hitting him, but still making her back up, as the boards creaked above them. They’d be buried alive, she realized, he was hoping that she’d be buried alive and he could make it out of there, and she knew if he did everything she loved would be in danger. 

With that burst of anger she swung the axe again, moving forward this time. She wasn’t playing the defensive, she was done with that, she was done with this. She’d sliced his arm a bit, catching him by surprise. He thought she couldn’t do it, that Kate had been a fluke, that he’d always be the one to break Stiles. All she could concentrate on was that anger, on Peter’s face and the axe in her hands, on the sickening noise of the blade cutting through the thick flesh of his shoulder. Too low, she realized, watching his horrified face as he looked at his wound instead of her, just giving it another swing and hitting her target again. She’d got him in the neck this time, the spurt of blood warm on her face, but she couldn’t finish, just pulling back and doing it again, and again, until he was on his knees, until his head was off and tumbling down towards the water, falling in with a sickening splash. 

Stiles couldn’t think about it, couldn’t process what she’d just done. Her hands were shaking as she dropped the axe, taking deep labored breaths to try and calm herself down. She couldn’t stay here, she couldn’t leave this like it was, the building beginning to collapse, Kate’s unmoving body, what was left of Peter. She spotted a gas can in a corner, prayed there was something still left in there. There wasn’t much, just enough to pour on Kate and Peter and on the rotting wooden deck between the bodies, and as luck would have it, a box of matches in the old tackle box. 

She finally started crying as she walked into the woods, the fire burning bright in the night behind her. 

\--

The sun was beginning to rise by the time Stiles finally stumbled back to the house. Everything hurt but she knew falling asleep in the woods would be a terrible idea. She wasn’t sure of the extent of her injuries, just knew that everything had finally stopped bleeding, at least outwardly. The woods were calm and she knew everything would be alright, that nobody was going to hurt her family. She’d done what she had to do, all that was left was to drag herself inside, to let Derek take over from here. 

She’d hoped more than anything she could make it into the house, to find Derek asleep with Laura and everything would be perfect. It was blood loss, maybe, that made her forget that her husband was a werewolf, that he’d probably been able to smell her for ages, that the only reason he was waiting for her on the porch was the fact that he didn’t want to leave their baby alone. He looked gray with worry, his face falling at the sight of her, and all Stiles could do was march over to him, to take his jaw in her hands. 

“I love you so fucking much.” Stiles needed him to know that, and that seemed like a good enough place to let herself finally collapse. 

\--

The bed was nice. Actually it was better than nice, it was warm and soft and smelled like all the things Stiles had always loved; the faint smell of roses and woods, leather and spice, lilac and baby. It was so nice she didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want to face what was waiting for her, because she was absolutely sure nothing could be as nice as this. Nuzzling her head into her pillow she let out a soft groan, moving hurt a bit. She could feel stiffness in her muscles and her skin, the dull ache of pain floating through her body for even daring to move from where she’d been the most comfortable. 

“I think Mommy’s awake.” There was a lilt in Derek’s voice that made Stiles’ toes curl, that soft sweet voice he’d never used before the baby. And god, what did she have her eyes closed for, when she could take in the sight of Derek and Laura sitting in the gliding chair next to the bed. He looked exhausted but handsome, hair a mess and stubble on his cheeks and bags under his eyes, his tight white shirt clinging obscenely to his biceps, their baby swaddled tightly in a blanket in his arms, all chubby cheeks and dark hair. 

“Am I dreaming? I think I’m dreaming because I’m pretty sure I’m at a loss for words right now and I’m never at a loss for words unless I’m...” Sometimes Stiles was very glad her husband was a werewolf. Times where he could move to the bed and kiss her without waking their baby were at the very top of the list. 

“That was an incredibly stupid thing you did, Stiles.” The scolding was inevitable, she knew, but it would have just been really really nice if he’d had just let her kiss him for a few more minutes before he started in on her. Instead of answering, she just wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him again, her other hand moving to brush her fingers through Laura’s hair slowly. She was covered in bandages, stitches here and there she could tell by the way it felt when she moved a certain way. It didn’t matter though, not any of it, she’d kept them safe. 

“You would have done the same thing.” She let her lips linger against Derek’s, glad he’d just gone with it and kissed her back, slow and soft and hungry. 

“I need you here, Stiles. If she’s anything like the two of us, she’s going to be a handful.” His smile would have ruined the kiss if she’d had let it, but she wasn’t, not when everything was perfect. There would always be something to worry about in the future, but with the two of them, Stiles was absolutely sure she could handle anything the world, supernatural or otherwise, threw at them.


End file.
